Bank execs, real estate agents in raps

Makati prosecutors recommended the filing of charges against four bank executives and two real estate agents who allegedly swindled a Chinese real estate developer of some P20 million.

Ricardo Pascua, Carlos Pedrosa, Gaudencio Pacia and Antonio Lugo, executives of 1st e-Bank, PDCP, were named in the charge sheet submitted by the Makati Prosecutor’s Office. Also charged were Jovita Dimalanta, of Bulaong Subdivision, General Santos City and her partner, Evelyn Te, a real estate broker and agent of General Santos City.

Complainant Jesse Yang Yap, a businessman, said he issued three Bank of the Philippine Islands checks on Jan. 3, 1997 payable to Evelyn Te, as payment for the 625 hectares of land he bought.

Yap, former chairman of the Primetown Property Group Inc., said Te worked for Primetime as a real estate agent at the time. When Yap gave Te the checks, he said it was with the agreement that they would be deposited and encashed only after the title of the properties had been delivered.

He added that he had the right to dishonor, or to stop payment, or to cancel any of the post-dated checks issued in the event the paper, documents and titles of the real properties were not delivered to him. But the papers for the properties never reached Yap so he canceled the checks.

Broker Te, however, assured Yap that the documents would soon be delivered so the businessman deposited two Metrobank checks at the PDCP head office in Makati. He was stunned, though, when he found out that the P20 million was credited to the account of Dimalanta, as shown by the statement of account of PDCP.

Yap said he did not issue an authorization to PDCP to credit the funds of the two Metrobank checks to Dimalanta. Yap said PDCP executives Pascua, Pedrosa, Pacia and Lugo could have facilitated the transfer of the funds to Dimalanta without his authority.